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Friday, June 02, 2006

In the !Hungary! Group on MySpace, there is a topic called "How Hungarian are you?"

I find it very interesting to read what people from every corner of the world answer to this. The most common answers tell you 1/2, 1/4, 100% etc, according to how many of their parents & grandparents are/were Hungarians.

As I love to write, and sometimes I'm also a bit philosophycal, I came up with this:

If I look at my genes: my last name is not a typical Hungarian one, it must be some Slavic origin, Bulgarian, Slovakian or Polish, I'm not sure, but my grandmother and up knew we were Hungarians. And funny enough, the word gerak, without the special accent on the a means movement or moving in Indonesian, if I am not wrong.

In my mother's family: her mother's last name implied a Saxon origin, her father's family had a Slovakian last name 100 yrs ago, but they were also Hungarians.

I can't make the math from all this, don't ask me percentages...

I am simply: Hungarian!!!

Yes, that's true: throughout the whole history of Hungarians we were mixed with people from other countries. This way, it's quite difficult to trace back "how many percent Hungarian are you" by the blood. It's rather a matter of what do you KNOW what you are.

I am sure that my family, for example, way back had some Slovakian or whatever Slavic connection - but all we know that we are Hungarians. Period.

It's the same with many other families, unless one can prove that their ancestors arrived with Arpad... (for those who don't know him: in the history of Hungary, he was the main leader of our nation the Magyars when they arrived in the Carpathian Basin, around 896. His offsprings wree the first kings of Hungary)

Of course, there is such a genetic thing for one as "My family is x % Hungarian" - as far as they can go back to 1, 2, maybe 3, 4 generations. This is something great to keep, and gives one the feeling of belonging to a certain group for a whole life.

The more important point for one is to fully assume the identity of being Hungarian, and not just use it as a facade and behaving as a jerk ("I am MAGYAR!! Hungary rules!!! Get it, you motherfucking dickhead?" or something), - but live life in such a way that anyone can say about them: "Hungarians? They are cool people! Once I've met one, and he/she was..." and they would tell a nice story which will remain their impression about Hungarians.

I think this is what really counts. Anybody would agree?

Hahaha, I just realized, it's really funny: I'm writing about me being Hungarian - in English... Don't worry magyarok, I'll write this down also magyarul, it just takes hell of a lot time to get all those characters out of my old machine.